Young's Heart Runs Free

One of the architects of Belfast’s legendary ‘70s punk scene, Brian Young is now giving it maximum sockage with rockabilly outfit The Sabrejets.

Colin Carberry, 11 Nov 2011

Brian Young claims he’s in competition with bandmate Laurence McKeown to see which Sabrejet will be the first to cover themselves entirely in tattoos. Given Brian’s devotion to the rockabilly cause, it would be a brave man who bets against him.

With the skin art, clothes (patched leather jacket, worker boots and turned-up jeans), and – most strikingly – the magnificent, head-turning quiff, he looks every inch the unacknowledged music legend. Which, of course, is exactly how it should be.

We will hopefully have an opportunity next year to talk about his days with Rudi – the gifts from Marc Bolan, the bringing of punk to Belfast, the amazing run of singles: to hear all about this most wonderful, important and under-appreciated of bands.

But it’s been almost 30 years since Rudi split, and in the time since, the man has been busy making and playing music on his own terms. Yes, he’ll speak about the punk days if asked (and there are few more eloquent and perceptive commentators on the subject), but while Brian’s role in punk (and punk’s role in Brian’s life) should never be underplayed, it would also be wrong to define him solely by it.

The last decade has found Brian devoting himself to self-confessed ‘greaser kings’, The Sabrejets – a rockabilly four-piece saturated in Sun Records aesthetics and Johnny Thunders attitude. Recorded output has been minimal – but if Bob Dylan thinks his schedule is never-ending, a glance at the Sabrejet gig-list would leave him feeling like a lightweight.

Listen to Brian talk on the matter, and it’s clear why: the guy’s on a mission.

“There’s an awful lot of snobbery attached to rockabilly music,” he says. “Poison Ivy from The Cramps said that rockabillys were forward-looking people, they wrote forward-looking songs, used state-of-the-art equipment. Eddie Cochran was a pioneer – if he had lived into the ‘60s, I’m sure he would have been making really amazing sounding records. People go on about Americana, and how authentic it is: give me a break. It’s university Americana written by hippies. Those guys would run a mile from blue-collar America. Rockabilly gets sneered at as redneck music but that’s such bollocks. How can you be racist if your heroes are Little Richard and Chuck Berry? And there are loads of amazing female rockabilly musicians. It’s a very adventurous and liberating music.”

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